Franken Looks Like a Winner, but Not Quite a Senator

Al Franken met with Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California in November. If rulings go the way they appear to be going, the two Democrats will soon be colleagues. (By Lauren Victoria Burke -- Associated Press)

For now, folks such as Franken and Roland Burris, the former Illinois attorney general picked by Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) to succeed Barack Obama, just want to be recognized as senators. But how quickly that happens could someday be the difference between rank-and-file status and a committee chairmanship.

Under normal circumstances, the entire class of senators elected every two years is sworn in on the same day and their seniority is determined by a complicated series of tiebreakers, giving a boost to newcomers who previously served in the Cabinet, as a governor or in the House. In a December 1980 letter, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee put an end to the practice of outgoing senators retiring shortly after the November election and having their successor appointed early just to get a leg up on seniority.

A pair of senior Democratic aides suggested that, under the spirit of that letter, these new appointees should be considered part of the class of senators sworn in tomorrow. If that is the case, people such as Franken and Michael Bennet, chosen by Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) to succeed Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) once Salazar is confirmed as interior secretary, will be judged equally alongside Sen.-elect Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). For those with no major experience, the ultimate tiebreaker for seniority is the size of the states they represent, so Caroline Kennedy is sitting in a good spot because of New York's stature, should Gov. David A. Paterson (D) name her to succeed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) once Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state.

But that 1980 ruling, issued by then-Sens. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) and Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.), never anticipated four senators leaving the chamber to go into a new administration and their successors taking over after the swearing-in day, so some outside experts dispute the notion that the Pell-Hatfield letter applies. Eric Ueland, a parliamentary expert who served as a top GOP aide for more than a decade, told The Fix that the date the replacement senators are sworn in should determine where they land in seniority.

"Given the Democrats' rigid adherence to seniority, the decisions made over the next few weeks by Clinton, Salazar, Paterson and Ritter could determine the leadership of key Senate committees for the Democrats a decade or more from now," Ueland, now at the Duberstein Group, wrote us via e-mail.

These slight ticks in seniority, one way or the other, do have implications. A few years ago, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) was able to become chairman of the agriculture committee (he's now the ranking minority member) over colleagues also first elected to the Senate in 2002 because he was deemed more senior than them based on his service in the House.

Players

Penny Lee is leaving her senior post at the side of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) to become a partner with the public affairs and consulting firm Venn Strategies. Lee is a well-known name in Washington, having served as the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association during the 2006 election cycle. Before that, Lee had the unenviable task of managing Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell's public pronouncements as the Democratic governor's communications director.